Well-built, multi-function portable DVD player

I started to look for a portable DVD player as we're going to have an intercontinental flight with our 3-yr old son. We need something to occupy him besides his books and toys. My on-line research led me to the SDP1900.

In the age of sub-$100 player flooding the market, this portable player may seem a bit pricey (offerings range from $170 to $200), but you do get what your money's worth.

The 9" 16:9 screen is clear and bright to display progressive scan contents. Composite A/V and optical audio ports enable it to be a DVD player you can use with your TV too. Dual headphone jacks make it easy for travelers to share it with privacy. The Li-ion battery handles at least 2 full DVD movies with ease (didn't get to try longer than that).

The feature that wins me over is the DivX support and good battery life. DivX is a MPEG-4 compatible codec that enables you to compress great quality video in relatively small file sizes. If you encode a DVD-quality video with DivX, a comparable quality DivX file is only about 1/3 of the DVD size. With DivX support you can actually convert a few DVDs onto a single DVD-R disc and still enjoy the great A/V quality (of course not something MPAA would approve ;). This can save you some space. Now I can just bring one disc for my son to have his favorite Thomas, Diego, and Elmo episodes. If you download videos from the Internet, chances are that many of them are encoded in DivX too (Xvid also works for those who know what that is).

I've since watched and tested a few DVDs as well as DivX/Xvid discs and they all worked flawlessly except the movie Closer, which somehow not recognized by the player.

I didn't test the MP3/WMA/JPEG playback yet. Those are not important to me. Since those are such common features for portable DVD players, I don't expect this one would have any problem with them.